Brands and movie making: using storyboards to develop spatial design students' understanding of narrative

Spatial designers use sketch perspectives as a design development tool because they can offer a powerful means of representing physical form on a flat surface. However, whilst perspectives can depict the appearance of a building, they do not describe it as a narrative sequence of events and experiences. Storyboards can do this because they enable a scheme to be investigated and represented in a multi-sensory and dynamic way, but students can find them difficult to use effectively. The University of Bedfordshire's innovative 'Brands and Movie-Making' project addresses this by requiring its spatial design undergraduates to make experimental movies, providing a powerful vehicle for the development of storyboard-drawing skills and a firm base for the discipline-specific work-to-come. But its effectiveness is limited because the students appear reluctant to draw by hand, and this will be investigated further.